Investigation into relocatable home design and construction

Abstract

Relocatable homes (also known as manufactured or prefabricated homes) exist all over Australia, especially in Queensland where relocatable home parks are popular in the form of tourist parks and elderly estates, and they are also commonly found in mining towns where the demand for new housing exceeds the limitations of local builders. Although not as popular here in Australia as they are in the USA, they are however becoming more and more common all around the globe as they are ideal for certain lifestyles and budgets. The homes undergo significant rough behaviour in their journey from their construction to final positioning including loading on and off of the transporting truck, wind loads and general jolting on the roads. Even once in place, cracking can often occur due to foundation movements. This thesis outlines an analysis of the dry stack block method.